Free solar panel discussion

grahamc2003

cathd6 wrote: »

Sums? I saved £100 over the first 3 months post-installation. My bills, post-installation, are sub £30/month. I don't think there's any maths involved there, it's just two facts..

Since that is some information we can't simply google for, would you mind explaining how you arrived at the £100 in 3 month saving?

grahamc2003

cathd6 wrote: »

Edited for one final point. If 15% renewables is an impossible target in the UK, I wonder how other countries which have exceeded this target (up to 30%?) have managed it? 19% of Denmark's power comes from wind farms. So it would seem that it's not only stubborn being pessimistic, it's also misconceived and can only hold us back vs other nations.

That's an easy one.

Different countries have different resources, Denmark has the topography suitable for a great deal of hydro.

While if that weren't fortunate enough, plenty of hydro is also an enabler for a high degree of wind, due to the fast response of hydro power, to correct for the instabilities wind causes when grid connected - so a double whammy positive effect.

Unfortunately, England and Wales, which our grid covers, has only a relatively tiny hydro resource - so little in fact it made sense to make our own hydro by pumping water uphill instead of using rain water. This also means we have difficulty and great expense coirrecting for variable wind power connected to our grid, which is acheived by running other plant (often fossil fueled) away from its most efficient (thus causing more coi2 than they would otherwise).

If a high penetration of wind is forced onto the grid, not only will the subsidies to do that cost you and me much more, but also the grid will be running overall much less efficiently, which will also cost us more (and potentially cause more co2 at times than the windpower is saving). A third cost we bear of course i the redundancy of capacity - since wind can't guarantee to generate at 5:30 on a winter's evening (in fact it often doesn't blow when very cold), we have to pay for duplicity of all wind capacity.

Of course, I expect you know differently and will soon inform us of the actual situation.

cathd6

It's rough science but my electricity bill was £100 less that quarter (despite it being the winter and entertaining family for 2 weeks over Christmas / NY)

Unacceptable as evidence I know!

cathd6

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Of course, I expect you know differently and will soon inform us of the actual situation.

Actually, I do happen to know that Denmark doesn't generate much hydro at all - a tiny amount. It does IMPORT a lot of hydro electricity from neighbouring countries...?

***I don't set myself up as a global expert at all by the way, as an explanation I happened to be in Copenhagen discussing this very issue in October! I don't think I could tell you the current situation anywhere else in Europe

**** On inspection 0.1% in Denmark, and we're looking to develop schemes to 1.5% in UK - already produce 2% of total electricity this way

And yes - but we are rather blessed with certain natural resources, certainly not worse than every one oft he vast number of countries who do better than us!

grahamc2003

cathd6 wrote: »

Actually, I do happen to know that Denmark doesn't generate much hydro at all - a tiny amount. It does IMPORT a lot of hydro electricity from neighbouring countries...?

!

OK, point accepted, I should have said the grid to which Denmark is connected has lots of hydro.

And the rest of my post?

It seems to me you seem to be saying that Switerland has a lot of ski resorts, so we should have them too.

cathd6

Er... no. Just the things I said.

I do find it highly dubious if you are arguing that Denmark's success with wind power is premised on high availability of hydro power, and that this alone makes wind power viable... but maybe I've got your argument wrong.

What is baloney is the thought that either 15% renewable power is an unattainable target for the UK, or that we cannot hope to overtake any of the countries above us in the table for geographical reasons. Either concept is patently false, and tediously, unnecessarily negative to the point that anyone promoting that argument must surely have another agenda...

grahamc2003

cathd6 wrote: »

Er... no. Just the things I said.

I do find it highly dubious if you are arguing that Denmark's success with wind power is premised on high availability of hydro power, and that this alone makes wind power viable... but maybe I've got your argument wrong.

What is baloney is the thought that either 15% renewable power is an unattainable target for the UK, or that we cannot hope to overtake any of the countries above us in the table for geographical reasons. Either concept is patently false, and tediously, unnecessarily negative to the point that anyone promoting that argument must surely have another agenda...

Well what are these 'other agendas' which frequently crop up during discussions on here?

I'm sorry, I assumed that by starting a discussion on wind power, you had at least read a tiny bit about the problems with wind power, e.g. intermittancy and variability, and I thought you may therefore be receptive to how these are overcome to reduce the instabilities they cause in a grid. Obviously I was wrong, so you will just have to find the things I say 'dubious' and think limits on wind penetration levels due to availability of fast reserve are 'balony'.

Cardew

cathd6 wrote: »

It's rough science but my electricity bill was £100 less that quarter (despite it being the winter and entertaining family for 2 weeks over Christmas / NY)

Unacceptable as evidence I know!

What is unacceptable is the implication that those savings are down to solar PV.

£100 equates to approx 1,000kWh.

In a winter quarter(to include Xmas and NY) I doubt if anyone with a domestic PV system generates half of that total(500kWh), let alone uses it in the house!

Plenty of people post their monthly generated totals - check it out.

digitaltoast

grahamc2003 wrote: »

That's an easy one.

Different countries have different resources, Denmark has the topography suitable for a great deal of hydro.

While if that weren't fortunate enough, plenty of hydro is also an enabler for a high degree of wind, due to the fast response of hydro power, to correct for the instabilities wind causes when grid connected - so a double whammy positive effect.

And yet with all of that...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Denmark

In 2009, the Institute for Energy Research commissioned the Danish think-tank CEPOS (Centre for Political Studies) to report on electricity exports from Denmark (see above) and the economic impact of the Danish wind industry. This report states that Danes pay the highest residential electricity rates in the European Union (partly to subsidize wind power), and that the cost of saving a ton of carbon dioxide between 2001 and 2008 has averaged 647 DKK (€ 87, US$ 124). The report estimates that 90% of jobs were transferred from other technology industries to the wind industry, and that 10% of wind industry jobs were newly created jobs, and states that as a result, Danish GDP is 1.8 billion DKK (US$ 270 million) lower than it would have been without wind industry subsidies.

zeupater

cathd6 wrote: »

Because if one individual household has not used £100 worth of dirty electricity in one quarter then that's a pretty significant carbon saving when upscaled - do you dispute? Wait till we can stick a battery on that - that's not too long coming. To reap the real national and global benefits early adopters are needed - and human nature means that comes at an up-front cost.

Re the new development - I don't have official figures to hand but they'll be paying less than me for gas and electricity. I don't pay for my hot water any more and these houses do not have central heating. I pay under £30/month for electricity in a 4-bed house with kids and they have greater generating capacity and presumably less use. Mains water use cut drastically by rainwater collection. Passive houses. I also have no problem with the council receiving any subsidy, partly because I pay for the council in the first place.

You'd better check how much we're liable for if we don't meet our targets and get in touch with the government if the FIT scheme is going to be more costly because some economists have clearly got their sums wrong.

Hi

I really find the post quite confusing ......

Electricity saving of £100/quarter (£400/year), and still paying £30/month (£360/year) for imported electricity ? .... That's £760 per year for electricity, so around 7600kWh/year ???, this being in a 4 bedroom house where gas is also used ?? ....... :eek:

Now, considering that in a previous post (http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=43864818&postcount=14) the FiT payment on your 4kWp system for Dec-Feb was to be £300, which equates to around 700kWh of generation, which in turn could only save £70(ish) if you could use all of the generation in your own house ..... :rotfl:. Looking at Dec to Feb generation on a 4kWp system you'd be lucky to average 6kWh/day (around 540kWh), wherever you are in the country, so a Fit payment of around £230 and a 100% electricity in-house usage saving of around £54 would likely be the maximum possible saving .... now I'm really getting confused ....

It would be nice to achieve savings such as these, but as a system owner myself I would consider figures such as these to be closer to fantasy than realistic ....

HTH
Z